The man behind Highway and Jab We Met ,Imtiaz Ali
In the current crop of directors, one the few directors who come into our minds is Imtiaz Ali. Imtiaz has earned a reputation of having matured in Sufism and madness. Be it ‘Socha Na Tha or Highway’, his films reflect him. Every script he was written so far has investigated human emotions.
There are many things about him which people do not know about. Here we are going to tell you a few facts about Imtiaz Ali, which you did not know about.
Father used to work in the irrigation department – Imtiaz Ali was born in Jamshedpur and as a child he used accompany his father to the fields. Here he experienced the reality of things that used to happen in rural India.
Found his calling while shooting Imteehan – Imtiaz began his career while directing TV programs such as Kurukshetra for Zee TV and Imteehan for Star Plus. Directing Imteehan was a huge turning point in his life. Imtiaz says that it sub-consciously told him that directing was his passion. After Imteehan, Imtiaz never looked back.
4 years for ‘Socha Na tha’- Imtiaz’s directorial debut was ‘Socha Na Tha’ starring Abhay Deol and Ayesha Takia. Although, the film was a box office failure, it won critical acclaim. It took Imtiaz Ali four years to make the film, during which he learnt about tapes and how machines assembled and how the editing process manipulated scenes. During those four years, he also wrote 10 scripts, which were made into films such as Rockstar, Highway and Jab We Met.
Deepika was the first choice for Rockstar – Not many people know this, but Deepika was the first choice for Rockstar, but he realised the scenes were too similar to ‘Love Aaj Kal’ so he dropped Deepika and took Nargis Fakhri in the end.
Wrote Highway 20 years back – Again a fact which a very few people know of is the fact that Highway was the first script that he wrote; almost 20 years ago. Imtiaz had met Alia Bhatt when she was five-years-old. Next when he bumped into an audition, he knew then and there that Highway had to be made with Alia.
